Rising - Antigone (Token)

Title: Rising

Artist: Antigone

Label: Token

Cat Number: TOKEN88LP

Genre: Techno

A1: Rising

A2: Sands of Time

B1: Perchance to Dream

B2: Lost and Found

C1: Out There

C2: Duality of Mind

C3: Infinite Limit

D1: It Follows

D2: Irreversible

D3: Love Field

This is Antigone’s debut album and it’s a patient, well-disciplined realization of what I would hope is the artist’s imagination. This much should be obvious I suppose, but in a genre as claustrophobic as techno, it may need to be said more often than should be necessary. It’s not easy to make something which is truly unique within this genre anymore. The machine funk trace elements of one strain or another always seem to be present and form another layer of veneer on what has already been absorbed. What has kept me listening to this collection over the past few days is its symmetry and ambience; two very important techno characteristics that distinguish this album and raise it above the level of the mundane. It’s a bit too clean at times, but the space within which Antigone operates is both figurative and hallucinatory and, although most of what has been produced here feels safe within its cyclic realms, the restraint and maturity which adorns it is notable.